For a while, back in August of last year, it looked like we might be getting an adaptation of Tom Perrotta's The Abstinence Teacher, another novel from the Little Children author about sexuality and repression in the American suburbs. That adaptation, which was rumored to have Sandra Bullock and Steve Carell interested at one point, doesn't seem to be going anywhere at the moment, which is leaving from for Playing the Field to take its place.

The comedy, starring Gerard Butler as a youth soccer coach getting romantically entangled with various women in his neighborhood, starts filming this week, and two more smitten women have been added to the cast. According to The LA Times Catherine Zeta-Jones and Judy Greer have each signed on to play neighborhood women who have the hots for Butler's character; they're competing against Uma Thurman, who is married to Dennis Quaid in the film, and Jessica Biel, who plays Butler's estranged wife. Thankfully Butler won't be asked to provide one of his characteristically terrible accents-- his character is a professional European soccer player who moves to the suburbs in order to be closer to his kids.

Gabriele Muccino will be looking to make up for his last film, the disastrous Seven Pounds, by directing this one, and he's at least managed to assemble an impressive cast to have faith in him. He's also brought in a pinch hitter-- sorry, wrong sports metaphor-- to help him out; the Times is hearing from sources close to the production that Stuart Blumberg, the Oscar-nominated co-writer of The Kids Are All Right, has been brought on board to tweak the script originally written by Rob Fox. Given that Kids had one of the better comedy screenplays in recent memory, Blumberg's participation would be another huge step forward for this movie. Keep this up, Muccino, and I may pretend I never lost those two hours to Seven Pounds after all.